Until the stained glass fracturesacross my throat, I won’t breathe.Oh Dios, I won’t breathe. I watchas my nails get blacker by the day.She showed me how to peel fruitcorrectly, so I take all of themone skin at a time, vein by vein,a resurrection.

It’s like this—home is whereyou are when your eyes areclosed. The nights here are lurid;guns force a song into ourthroats.It wants blood: it wants sinewand white-toed communion.There is no release untilthe morning shivers out fromunderneath the stars. Once,I offered our husks to the alleydogs and watched as theyswallowed them whole: we areno longer prophets. My homeis here, this throat of a sky.And hers is a garland of agaveflowers, eternally blooming,coiled under her nail beds.

About The Author

Casandra Robledo is a sophomore pre-nursing student at the University of Illinois at Chicago. When she is not writing poetry, she volunteers for a number of student organizations on campus. She has an avid interest in photography, and she likes her coffee with extra sugar. Her work has been published in the Red Shoes Review and the 2015 issue of Brainchild.